Day 4, Black Mountain Thunder Zip Line and the drive to Virginia

Today started later than others, since we didn't have to drive far and the zip lines didn't open until 9. Still, we had some trouble finding it, tucked away in the tiny village of Evarts, Kentucky as it is. Black Mountain Thunder is actually mainly an ATV/tricked out truck track system, hosting some truly crazy races based on what I have heard. The zip lines are a relatively new addition, being only two years old.

We hadn't made a reservation or anything, but the folks there were really nice and got things arranged for us as quick as they could. Only my dad and I were there for the lines then, so it was just our two guides and us. Which is awesome, no waiting, no lame people panicking and getting stuck halfway down the line, and a much better opportunity to just talk with our guides.

I have only gone on one zip line before in Costa Rica, and the set-up in Kentucky was the same as there, a harness, a helmet and leather padded gloves for your breaks, old school! Though in comparison, Black Mountain Thunder puts the lines we went on in Costa Rica to shame. At it's highest point, the line is 500 feet above the valley floor, and you achieve speeds up to 60 mph while hanging from a steel cable by nothing more than a pulley attached to your harness. Two miles of zip line in twelve runs, a great deal of fun. There are also cameras set up to take your pictures and they e-mail them to you later, set up by a fellow Canadian, but it costs extra and we were more concerned with having a good time than having proof of said time.

Definitely a thrilling ride, though not for the faint of heart. The high lines are not immune to wind and if you do not know how to control yourself on a zip line it can spin you around. But such is the nature of these things, and Black Mountain Thunder Zip Lines are awesome and have staff who are very competent and helpful. So if hanging from a cable and hurtling about through the trees is your thing (I know it is mine) then you would be hard pressed to find a more fun and extreme set of lines anywhere. Great attraction for the area, I highly recommend it.

After the lines we went for the long haul to Virginia and Kings Dominion. Taking the most insanley winding and banked roads I have ever ridden on out of Harlan County, we found ourselves in Virginia after not too long. Like usual, the GPS was tripping out and seemed to want to take us down I-85 south for several hours for no reason, before we turned around and went north. So, like before, we bought a map and navigated more by that, using the GPS just as a frame of reference. I wish I had some coverage in the States with my phone, having access to Google maps would be godly.

Virginia has some nice scenery too, the claustraphobic mountains and valleys of Kentucky eventually gave way to the larger and more spread out mountains of Virginia, and we spent a long time going up and down until we reached only 30 metres above sea level in our destination.

Warning, if you are visiting Kings Dominion, do not even entertain the thought of staying in Doswell. It is a one-horse town with crap all around. We wound up going to Ashland instead (only 11 km from the park) and after far too much effort, found an Econolodge to stay for the next two nights.

We've covered a ridiculous amount of ground over the past two days, and staying in one place for a day is going to be a welcome change. Looking forward to Kings Dominion tomorrow!

Day 3, Mammoth Caves and the road to Harlan

Day 3 started out a bit later than usual, as we had no park to go to today, other than Mammoth Caves National park. Weather was sunny and hot, way to get the weather right, every single source we checked yesterday (sarcasm).

Mammoth Caves is the largest known cave system in the world, at over 400 miles of discovered caverns, along with the unknown areas that are still flooded and being sculpted even now. The caves are mainly limestone and formed by water erosion, and stay remarkably stable thanks to the cap of sandstone under the ridge above the caves.

Our tour started off in a sinkhole with a bizarre concrete doorway. The tour we chose was the "new entrance", a formerly privately owned entrance to the cave system that was created by a rich fellow to compete with the success of the historic caves in the early 1920's. You can see our park ranger guide, a fine southern gentleman by the name of Bobby.

After only about ten feet of a man-made passageway, the first of the drainage shafts opens up before you. On the way down 280 feet, through four or five separate shafts, you get to see the drainage from the surface sink holes in action. It was pretty dry above ground, so it was little more than intermittent drips to a very light rain underground. The shafts are insanely deep, as they feed the current water levels in the cave that flow out as the Green River.

After the shafts, you come out into a totally dry chamber, where the walls were littered with huge debris. This area of the cave had dried out due to the water diverting to deeper parts and so huge sections of the wall and ceiling had collapsed long ago. Despite the appearance, it is structurally sound as everything that is going to fall has done so already.

After walking through the winding dry passages we could eventually hear running water and we found ourselves in a wet chamber with a leak sprung in the roof pouring water down into the caves. It was here that the rock formations began to appear. Some are just simple stalactites/stalagmites while others appear far more exotic, such as the "curtain" formations. Very cool, best part of the caves.

After we made our way out, we stopped for the first proper lunch we have had so far. Good little country eatery, The Watermill, friendly staff, great prices and good food. If you find yourself in Mammoth Caves, The Watermill, in with a group of three souvenir stores, is a good place to go.

We finished up by 3 or so, and the day being as nice as it was, we decided to head to Harlan a day early for our zip line adventure tomorrow. We just had to eat at a genuine Kentucky KFC for supper, and it was delicious. Better than what we get in Canada.

Speaking of which, it is interesting to be Canadian in little Harlan, I don't know if they have ever seen one before based on the reactions.

"Ya'll aren't from around here are you?"
"Nope, we are from Ontario"
"Oh... what are ya'll doing in Harlan?"

Makes me laugh. Black Mountain Thunder Zip Lines is why we are here, a definite old-school zip tour, looking forward to it tomorrow.

At any rate, Kentucky is a very pretty state, so many hills and mountains. And the folks here have been so nice, I like Kentucky.

Tomorrow is gonna be another travel heavy day, as we are doing the drive to King's Dominion in Virginia after the zip tour. It is good though, shaves off almost half the time we will need to drive to Six Flags New England to pick up our season passes, and uses up the dead Friday we had in our schedule. Tomorrow I'll give an overview of the zip lines, should be a good time!

Day 2: Kings Island

Day 2, up and out of the hotel by 7:30 and on the road to King' Island. Or rather, trying to navigate our way out of Sandusky with a confused GPS. Eventually we made it and found a somewhat roundabout way to get to Interstate 71. Thankfully, it is a straight shot down I-71 and we made good time once we knew where we were going. Weather was gloomy, but we made it out from under the clouds and found good weather in Mason, OH. Check in to the hotel, another quick lunch and we were off to the park.

First stop, Diamondback. Tallest, fastest ride in the park, and a lot of fun too. Steep drop straight to a sequence of tall hills, offering pretty awesome negative g's. An overbanked turn brings you back around towards the station and a couple more air-time humps before running you up a helix and dropping you down to the water level for a very cool splashdown finish. Great ride, lots of fun and a good length, a must-ride here.

Next a short walk brought us to the Vortex. Definitely an old one, ride is a little rough and intense. Six inversions, two loops, two corkscrews and a strange reversed cobra roll round out the drops and twists. After that we hit what I thought was Firehawk. Waiting in the indoor queue, I just assumed the station would be on the other side. Turns out we were in line for Flight of Fear instead. Strange indoor coaster, a sudden launch sends you flying through a mass of twisted track. The ride is quite dark and somewhat difficult to keep any track of, but is fun if a tad rough.

Next up was Firehawk, a flying coaster that starts you off on the lift hill lying down on your back. Then twists you around so you are suspended under the track and whips you around face down for much of the ride. I am not sure whether it was the ten chicken nuggets I had for lunch, or sitting on the back not of our choosing (likely a bit of both), but Firehawk left me feeling like death. It is a cool enough ride, but if it made me feel sick, it is gonna be a bad choice for people with weaker stomachs, ride at your own risk!

After a trip to the car to ditch the hoodie and grab a drink, and a couple Stratovarius songs later I had recovered and we hit Diamondback again. Still good, had to check. Then we went on the long walk to Flight Deck. A suspended swinging coaster, relatively short, but a fast and twisted ride, with no line whatsoever. I'd say better than the Iron Dragon, give it a shot if you feel like a going for a walk.

After one last ride on Diamondback we called it a day. We headed to Walmart to grab some booze for a recovery and good night's sleep. Though, what is up with the diluted liquor? 21% Canadian Club? That's practically heresy unto the booze gods! Well, goodnight for now, tomorrow is a non-park day, what with many of the parks closed tomorrow and unanimous calls for thunderstorms. So far we have been able to outrun the bad weather, but it is gonna catch up to us eventually.

Golden Ticket Top 10 2012
Diamondback, #10

I will leave you with this image from the queue for Diamondback. At least they have a sense of humour about it, heh.

Day 1: Cedar Point

Woke up bright and early today, said our goodbyes to mom and the animals and set out for America. Boarder crossing was thankfully short and uneventful. After some frustration to do mostly with the GPS not finding Sandusky, we got oursleves a good old-fashioned map... and then saw that we never checked the region settings. Naturally, they needed to be changed to USA before the GPS would find little old Sandusky. But not to make our purchase of the map a waste, the GPS seemed to want to take every right turn when all we to do was follow one road. So after a heartfelt "screw you" to the GPS, we went old skool and followed the map.

By the way, I feel I should mention the fact that we had to go to two gas stations and a Walgreen's before we could find a figgin map of Ohio. What's up with that?

At any rate, we rolled into Sandusky a little later than planned, checked in to our hotel, ditched the baggage in the room, grabbed a small lunch and went to Cedar Point. In case you are unfamiliar with the roller coaster world, Cedar Point is easily considered one of the best parks on the planet. It has won the Golden Ticket award for Best Park in the World... fifteen years in a row. Not only that, it has the Golden Ticket winner for Best Roller Coaster in the world, Millennium Force. So if you like roller coasters at all, you have to go to Cedar Point.

Once all parked we made our hurried way to Millennium Force only to find it out of service, much to our dismay. But, there are no shortage of othee coasters in the park, so we headed to Maverick.

Maverick was a pretty sweet ride, with its LIM (linear induction motor, basically it accelerates your train with electro magnets similar to a rail gun) lift hill, it launches you up and over, down 95 degrees through the first section of the ride. Flips you over twice before stopping you in a tunnel under the station for a moment, before the second LIM run launches you out at 70 mph. Just too bad the hill after the launch has brakes near the top, or it would have been awesome negative g's. Awesome ride, though the queue is somewhat grating if country music isn't your thing. Recommended.

Next up was Raptor, one of the highest rated inverted roller coasters in the world, and with good reason. Nice tall lift hill sends you screaming down to the first huge loop at some intense speeds. The ride is very condensed and twisted, frankly it boggles the mind to try and reconcile the track design with the experience. Top coaster, a must ride, and we had very little wait to get on.

GateKeeper, new for this year was our next stop. Very unique ride, the seats are actually on either side of the track instead of above or below. The track design is insane, after the lift your are immediately twisted upsidedown into a diving loop, then back up again into another inversion that twists you out level again at the top, I believe this is called an Immelman. Then you get tossed up over a huge hill for some awesome negative g's before going for a barrel roll through two gates above the park entrance that appear nowhere near wide enough for the train to clear. Then you get twisted around and go for a second barrel roll behind the gates you just went through. Six inversions in all. Fantastic ride, unbelievably smooth, especially for how much lateral movement you go through, another must-ride.

While in line for Gatekeeper we finally saw a train get slung over the top of Millennium Force, so after a brief hydration and coat losing stop at the car we went to wait for Millennium Force. Definitely the highlight of the wait was a girl in line showing off her Magnum XL-200 ride photo which somehow captured her phone floating away from her pocket thanks to the negative g's there. I just laughed, and told her I was sorry for her loss. At least she has a picture worth paying for, heh.

Finally we get on Millennium Force, and as we are slung up and over the 310-foot tall (101 metres) special 'elevator' lift hill into that 80 degree drop we can see why it is called the best coaster in the world. Hitting speeds of over 90 mph after that drop you are flung up through a 200+ foot over banked turn. Some massive hills with great air time follow, with two tunnels along the way and some truly intense speed turns. Once you ride it, your mind takes a while to recover, it is not hard to see why it is rated as high as it is. If you go to Cedar Point and don't ride Millennium Force, you are doing yourself a great disservice. Ride this ride if at all possible!

We got off Millennium Force almost at 2 minutes to 8, closing time. The wait is usually pretty brutal, about an hour or more for us, but it is well worth it. It is just too bad the Top Thrill Dragster, which launches you up a 410 foot hill at over 100 mph, was out of service all day, hopefully when we get to Kingda Ka at Six Flags it'll be open. Same thing as Top Thrill, just taller and faster. We made it back to the hotel, watched the Leafs blow their only chance in how many ever years to touch the Stanley Cup, then went to sleep. Big day tomorrow! Never been to King's Island before, looking forward to it!

Record Holders:
Millennium Force, 6th tallest, 5th fastest, 6th longest
Top Thrill Dragster, 2nd tallest, 3rd fastest (We didn't get to ride this time, but I have ridden before)
GateKeeper, 1st tallest inversion
Maverick, 8th steepest drop

Golden Ticket Top 10 2012
Millennium Force, #1
Magnum XL-200, #8 (been on before, great ride, world's first hypercoaster with tons of air time)

**note, this post is a day late due to very annoying technical difficulties**

Introduction

Hello internets. My name is Nick Glaab, and I am a roller coaster addict. Luckily, so is my dad and it has been a goal of our's for many years to take a tour of awesome parks and hit as many record holders and top rated roller coasters in North Eastern America (we don't have the time, or money, or desire really to go to California) as possible. The plan, as it is while I am typing away, is to hit Cedar Point, King's Island, Six Flags New England and Six Flags Great Adventure primarily, before heading back into our home town of Canada for a journey through the rabbit hole (that's Wonderland you know). Our schedual isn't set in stone for much of the trip, so if we have the time and chance we could be going to King's Dominion, Darian Lake and/or La Ronde. All of this on two weeks. Should be fun!